A thumping sound was heard. Everyone looked toward the noise. The soldier approaching the horses was lying on the ground. He was dead, a long knife protruding out of his back.
“He’s here, ye fools!” Halkerston screamed. “Drag the women over here! We’ll use them as a wall to protect me!”
But he was speaking to thin air. When he looked back at the two soldiers who had been standing guard behind him on the pathway, they were also lying dead, one with his throat slit and the other with a ghastly-looking broken neck. Their last dying breaths were camouflaged by birdsong. Only the soldier tying Laura’s wrists was left alive.
“Bring her here!” Halkerston screamed. “I must use her as a shield. Ye take the cripple!”
The soldier trembled and whimpered. “Forgive me, Laird, but ye dinnae ken what he’s capable of. Y-Ye should have listened to the captain.”
The man pushed Laura toward Laird Halkerston and fled into the forest. As swift as a snake, Roy Halkerston grabbed Laura and held a dagger to her throat. “Come nay closer!” he screamed into the dense forest air, his voice bouncing off the standing stones and echoing around them. “I swear I’ll kill her!” He began to walk back toward Maegli, dragging Laura with him, kicking Alice aside as she tried to grab at his ankles.
Bruce Duncan stepped out into the clearing. “Let Laura go, an’ I swear I’ll let ye live, Laird. If ye kill her or hurt her, I’ll rip ye limb from limb.” Laura felt the man holding her tremble, but Halkerston was torn.
“The lady agreed to let me have the gold. I need it to pay for more soldiers, Duncan! I’m no’ a greedy man. All I want is a comfortable life with me wife an’ sons around me.”
Bruce walked closer, and Laura felt the dagger point prick her neck and a warm trickle of blood begin to ooze out. “If I let the two o’ ye go, Duncan,” the laird said, “it’ll be the same as if I chose to wear a sign for the rest of me life saying I’m a coward!”
Bruce held out his hands in a pacifying gesture as if he was trying to train a frightened young horse. “Roy, nay one will hold it against ye for letting the lady go. Stories about yer wisdom and canniness will be told to yer wee sons for the next fifty years. Folks will say: ‘Our laird had the choice between living or fighting, an’ he chose to live in peace. That’s a good laird to have guard us.’”
Laura held her breath. The dagger tip was so close to her vein. Then Laird Halkerston dropped the knife.
Moving too fast for her to see, Bruce picked up the knife and thrust it into his belt, and then grabbed the laird. “Ye did the right thing, Halkerston,” he said. “Let’s hope this is enough to make me forget all the other troubling deeds ye did in the pursuit of gold.”
Laura gave a hysterical laugh, gripping her neck to check it was whole. “He was nae the only one who caused trouble with his pursuit of gold, Bruce!”
Even Alice had to join in their wild laughs of relief.
19
They led the horses out of the woods. Alice was seated on Maegli, and Halkerston trailed behind the other horse, tied to its saddle with a long rope, walking as fast as he could with his wrists tied in front of him. Laura and Bruce held hands, oblivious to everything but each other. As they approached the cottage, the sun rose over the horizon like a big golden coin.
Because she was higher up, Alice was the first to see it. “What is that over there? It looks like an army.”
Bruce turned to Laird Halkerston with a snarl. “This better not be another one o’ yer tricks.”
The laird cringed and promised them it was not.
The faint cry of a horn sounded.
“That’s not the Huna banner,” Laura said, shading her eyes from the sun. “Let’s go and meet them. I’m curious.”
Now that the worst was behind them, Laura no longer cared about her reputation being sullied if Halkerston chose to tell everyone about her lying in the hay with Bruce. She was proud of their love and could not wait to get back home so that they could marry. She wondered how long it would be before they could travel to Edinburgh to consult the physicians and healers there.
“I dinnae recognize that banner,” Alice said, and Laura murmured in agreement. “But the colors seem so familiar…”
Bruce knew immediately. “It’s the Duncan clan.”
A massive warrior with gray hair and a huge gray beard astride the tallest warhorse they had ever seen halted in front of the four of them. “Greetings, Grandson.” The gray-haired warrior said. “I have come to save ye after receiving word from me auld friend, Laird Anderson. But it seems as if ye don’ need any help at all.”
Bruce bowed low. “There are three bodies in the woods by the standing stones that need buryin’, Grandsire,” he said when he straightened up.
Laura curtsied, and Alice bent her neck forward, saying, “Is it really ye, Grandfaither? Bruce looks just like ye.”
Laird Duncan dismounted and went to hold Alice’s hand. “Aye. I am yer grandfaither, Alice Duncan. I’ve come to bring ye home.”
Bruce was not very communicative at the best of times, but he was now. “Have ye changed yer mind about a lowly seamstress no’ bein’ good enough to wed me, Faither?”
Alice cried out, “That’s mean of ye, Bruce! If ye show clemency to auld scallywag Halkerston here, ye can forgive our grandfaither for his rash decision to cast out Faither all those years ago.”
